'X-Men' spinoff offers a moodier Wolverine

JANE HORWITZ, The Washington Post Writers Group

Published Friday July 26, 2013 at 6:00 am

Svetlana Khodchenkova and Hugh Jackman star in "The Wolverine."

"THE WOLVERINE" PG-13 — Dark, moody, narratively complex, exotic, occasionally tedious and very violent and bloody for a PG-13, "The Wolverine" will give high school-age fans of the five earlier "X-Men" films (all PG-13s) a satisfying thrill ride and a lot to chew on. The film may be too violent for some middle-schoolers. The prologue takes place in a prisoner of war camp near Nagasaki, Japan, at the end of World War II. Logan, aka the Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), is in solitary, chained in a deep hole. With his immortal healing powers, he protects a humane young guard, Yashida (Ken Yamamura), from the atomic bomb blast. Cut to the present. A depressed Logan, suffering bad nightmares and dream visits from his lost love Jean Grey, aka Phoenix (Famke Janssen), lives alone in the Yukon. He picks a bar fight with the surviving hunter who killed his favorite grizzly. (The bear got the others — we hear distant screams.) This reveals Logan to Yukio (Rila Fukushima), a petite martial-arts fighter from Japan. She reminds Logan of the man he saved at Nagasaki and says that the now elderly and wealthy Yashida (now played by Hal Yamanouchi) is dying and wants to say farewell. Logan goes with her to Tokyo and finds Yashida's family riven by rivalries and threatened by gangsters. Yashida's beautiful granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto) will inherit his business, but her life is in danger. Samurai warriors supposedly protect her, but loyalties are unclear. The more Logan tries to save Mariko, the more he risks losing his immortality to her grandfather's strange doctor, Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova).

THE BOTTOM LINE: Very violent for a PG-13, "The Wolverine" shows or strongly implies many impalements on swords, daggers and the claws that deploy from Wolverine's knuckles. He sustains many bloody injuries when his healing powers falter. In one scene, partly off-camera, he makes an incision into his own chest to remove an implant from his heart. Wolverine and Mariko kiss and it's implied they spend a night together. The script features some fairly mild profanity.

"R.I.P.D." PG-13 — A loud, blustery bore of a movie, "R.I.P.D." may send teen audiences straight to sleep. Even with fine lead actors Jeff Bridges, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Bacon and Mary-Louise Parker, the concept behind this expensive 3-D fantasy — cops killed in the line of duty working off their earthly sins from beyond the grave — just feels clunky. Nick (Reynolds) is a Boston cop whose partner Hayes (Bacon) murders him and makes it look like criminals did it. As Nick dies, he sees the world around him freeze. He's sucked into a vortex and lands at the bustling R.I.P.D. headquarters, run by Proctor (Parker). Everyone there is a dead cop. Nick was actually crooked in life -- he and Hayes stole some gold together — so he's given a chance to lessen his final judgment by working after death. He's teamed with cantankerous 19th-century lawman Roy (Bridges). They go back onto the streets of Boston to capture "Deados" — sin-laden souls disguised as humans and hiding from judgment.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Little or no blood flows in "R.I.P.D.," but the film has much skull-cracking mayhem, point-blank gunfire and destructive car chases. The dialogue includes frequent use of the S-word, and mild visual sexual innuendo. Roy says "I bought my love by the hour" in his time on Earth, implying brothels. He also uses the slur "no-count Injuns."

"THE TO DO LIST" R — Raunch is the key word here — good-natured but lewd, crude, explicit and emphatically for the 18-and-over crowd. "The To Do List" is very funny, too, but often in a squirmy way. Aubrey Plaza (TV's "Parks and Recreation" and "Portlandia") plays brainy high-school senior Brandy Klark. A virginal valedictorian, she's heading off to college in the fall and mortified at her lack of sexual experience. With help from friends Fiona (Alia Shawkat) and Wendy (Sarah Steele), she makes a list of sex acts to experience over the summer, then sets about checking off each item. At a party (teens shown drinking) where she chugs beer for the first time, Brandy has her first real sexual awakening. Hunky Rusty Waters (Scott Porter) briefly mistakes her for someone else and makes out steamily with her. Brandy starts her summer job at a pool run by a deadhead named Willy (Bill Hader, whose wife Maggie Carey wrote and directed the film). She finds that Rusty is the head lifeguard, so she sets her swim cap for him. She also experiments with her study partner Cameron (Johnny Simmons), who quietly adores her, and with others, finally learning that sex without emotion isn't much to brag about.

THE BOTTOM LINE: While there's no actual nudity, the film contains several explicitly mimed sexual situations, extremely graphic sexual slang and other clinical language, very strong profanity and gross-to-the-max toilet humor. Even for audiences 18 and older, the concept of a single young woman checking off sexual experiences as if studying for a final may be offensive for some religious and/or moral reasons.

"RED 2" PG-13 — Teens who get a charge out of watching eccentrics in their 60s or thereabouts crack wise, crash cars and shoot guns may find "Red 2" a minor hoot.

"FRUITVALE STATION" R — This is a serious and edgy drama, based on a real incident. Thoughtful high-schoolers aware of the recent acquittal of George Zimmerman for the alleged murder of Trayvon Martin will find it compelling. Director/screenwriter Ryan Coogler takes a clear-eyed approach to the tragic story of Oscar Grant (terrific Michael B. Jordan). A young African-American man, Oscar was unarmed when he was shot by a transit policeman at the Fruitvale BART Station in Oakland, Calif. He later died. It was early on New Year's Day, 2009. The movie opens with actual video (not graphic) of the event taken by a witness. Then it backtracks to trace Oscar's day. We learn that Oscar was not a model citizen, that he once dealt drugs, served time and had anger issues. But we also learn he was complex, most often well-meaning and trying to turn his life around. He was a gentle father to little Tatiana (Ariana Neal) and a loving boyfriend to her mom Sophina (Melonie Diaz). He and Sophina go out with friends to celebrate New Year's Eve in San Francisco, taking the BART train so they can safely drink. On the train home, a prison nemesis of Oscar's starts a fight. Transit cops arrest Oscar and his friends, handcuff and push them to the station floor as they loudly protest. A young cop shoots Oscar, then claims he mistook his pistol for his Taser.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The shooting on the real video as in the re-enactment is not graphic, but the scuffles with police and the fight on the train are harshly realistic, as are flashbacks to a time Oscar's mother (Octavia Spencer) visited him in prison. Scenes in the operating room show a lot of blood. Characters use strong profanity, drink and smoke pot. Oscar and Sophina have sexually charged scenes, but they're nonexplicit.